Please add articles in alphabetical order
Projects that encourage scientific inquiry not only through observing and measuring but also through designing and building.
Charles Fadel: "21st Century Skills and STEM-How do they intersect" Webinar archive
Fadel is the co-author (with Bernie Trilling) of "21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times" and collaborator on the 21st Century Skills organization (http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/)
Commentary from the March 10, 2010 Education Week and PDF version of Fadel's presentation.
The webinar was an excellent introduction to why STEM is important and how teachers can begin to look at ways to integrate STEM into existing curriculum. Fadel references work yet in progress, so more will be coming and will be available on the 21st Century Skills.org website.
is a non-profit organization with a mission to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the U.S. and worldwide. Using an open-content, web-based collaborative model termed the "FlexBook," CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality educational content that will serve both as core text as well as provide an adaptive environment for learning. - Free online textbooks
free concept mapping tools provided by IHMC-Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition
UCF-CECS has embarked on a statewide initiative to connect STEM educators with technical professionals in support of student learning both in and outside of the classroom. With support from General Electric Foundation and the Florida Space Grant Consortium, UCF-CECS is creating an on-line system that will match STEM educators’ talent and resource needs with the profiles of engineers, scientists and medical technologists from across Florida. It uses a combination of geographic matching and content matching using “big picture” state science standards to connect teachers and engineers. The system will also provide the ability to connect formal STEM educators with informal STEM educators for purposes of sharing insights and educational materials. The ETC also has the ability to record educators’ resource needs as we will be working with program partners to explore ways of finding STEM related supplies and materials. This will not happen overnight, but with your participation and in time we will begin to make an important difference!
With the generous support of Learning.com, we’ve compiled this collection of stories from our archives, along with other relevant resources from around the web, to help you and your staff best answer this challenge in your own schools. As the workplace changes and becomes increasingly global, today’s students must be educated with a 21st-century mindset. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills are no longer just “good skills” to have; they are increasingly vital to a 21st-century education—and students should begin cultivating these skills as early as possible.
Attracting students to the STEM disciplines is the first hurdle, and retaining student interest in these areas is the second. But once student interest in STEM-related fields is established, they will discover they are on a successful path not just for higher education, but for the workforce as well.
A design and manufacturing competition open to high school students, in which they build a race car while learning STEM skills
was founded in 1999 with the goal of using new media technologies to create a channel between the scientists, engineers, explorers and visionaries who are shaping the future, and today’s learners who will one day succeed them.
From the University of Illinois: The Inquiry Page is more than a website. It's a dynamic virtual community where inquiry-based education can be discussed, resources and experiences shared, and innovative approaches explored in a collaborative environment. Here you can search a growing database of inquiry units, and you can also build your own inquiry units. You can see pictures of inquiry-based activities and learn more about some of our partners who use inquiry methods. Learn how to assess and evaluate inquiry-based education or look for more inquiry resources to support what you're doing. Or you can simply find out more about what inquiry and The Inquiry Page are all about.
is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others. The seeds of Instructables germinated at the MIT Media Lab as the future founders of Squid Labs built places to share their projects and help others. Read more about the history...
To create a new Instructable, comment on someone else's Instructable, or do lots of other cool things, you need to become a member. We also have a guided tour.
The Jason Project: science curriculum and resources that are available free for teachers to use. (http://jason.org) The Jason project has some amazing streaming sessions coming up this year and has a host of free, downloadable materials that teachers can use to help integrate the project info into their curriculum. Great STEM stuff!
Edutopia's summary of this amazing undersea exploration project where the students join in the research! JASON no longer does an annual satellite broadcast, but both of the newly designed curriculum units have won a number of awards, including the Software and Information Industry Association's 2008 CODiE Award for Best Online Instructional Solution for the free online curriculum Operation: Monster Storms.
The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.
We have 1200+ videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology and finance which have been recorded by Salman Khan. 
Listen to a recent interview by Salman with NPR's All Things Considered
The Khan Academy and Salman Khan have received a 2009 Tech Award in Education. The Tech Awards is an international awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity.
"An organization dedicated to sharing the newer and emerging "learning tools" of science education. Tools such as real-time data collection, simulations, inquiry based lessons, interactive web lessons, micro-worlds, and imaging, among others, can help make teaching science an exciting and engaging endeavor. These tools can help connect students with science, in ways that were impossible just a few years ago. Take a look at a few different types of "learning tools" at this link, Tool Examples. At this point in our project we are highlighting some of the best web resources for science concepts. Although our main emphasis is on students, teachers, and parents, really anyone interested in science education will find the site useful and informative.
Using the National Science Education Standards (1996, National Academy of Sciences) as our framework, we highlight only the best of these "learning tools" for students and teachers. All of the featured tools go through a review process. Once a "learning tool" is submitted it is analyzed by an editorial panel of science educators and scientists for content and design."
brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life. MAKE is loaded with exciting projects that help you make the most of your technology at home and away from home. We celebrate your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will. Published as a quarterly since February 2005, MAKE is a hybrid magazine/book (known as a mook in Japan). MAKE comes from O'Reilly, the Publisher of Record for geeks and tech enthusiasts everywhere. It follows in line with the Hacks books and Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks, but it takes a highly visual and personal approach.
Discussion of math as an art and what public education had done to it to make it not so anymore. "A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas. This is why it is so heartbreaking to see what is being done to mathematics in school...In place of...simple and natural question[s} about shapes, and a creative and rewarding process of invention and discovery, students are treated to this: 'The area of a triangle is equal to one-half its base times its height.' Students are asked to memorize...formula[s] and then 'apply' [them] over and over in the 'exercises.' Gone is the thrill, the joy, even the pain and frustration of the creative act. There is not even a problem anymore. The question has been asked and answered at the same time— there is nothing left for the student to do...By removing the creative process and leaving only the results of that process, you virtually guarantee that no one will have any real engagement with the subject. It is like saying that Michelangelo created a beautiful sculpture, without letting me see it. How am I supposed to be inspired by that?"
Acclaimed oceanographer Robert Ballard, founder of the JASON Project, wants to make some waves in science education.
PBS TeacherLine and INSPIRE at Purdue University develop online course to support
integration of engineering into elementary curricula and improve STEM learning
An annual challenge calling for innovative classroom ideas. Their gallery is full of great ideas, categorized by grade level. You can vote on your favorites or just use the teachers' ideas as a springboard for your own projects.
STEM: Grade Range: PreK, K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12
Explore new ideas and new worlds related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Help students learn through a variety of resources, including video, lesson plans, activities and interactives for grades preK-12.
MATH: Grade Range: PreK, K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12
Find lesson plans, games, interactives and video from PBS national programming designed to enrich your mathematics curriculum.
Rising Above the Gathering Storm Two Years Later: Accelerating Progress Toward a Brighter Economic Future summarizes a convocation held in April 2008 to commemorate the release of the original Gathering Storm report. The convocation featured participation by Members of Congress, Cabinet Secretaries, leaders from industry and academia, and other experts. The discussions reviewed progress made thus far in implementing the Gathering Storm recommendations to strengthen K-12 education in math and science, research, higher education, and the environment for innovation. Participants also noted that much additional work is needed to ensure that America remains a leader in science and engineering in the long term.
An EdWeek.org article about "a selective, specialized high school in Baltimore [that] uses an interdisciplinary approach that enables students to experience STEM as a way of life."
free programming software from MIT to create and share your own interactive stories, games, music and art. Check out the 939,032 projects from around the world!
ASQ, American Society for Quality, recently teamed with Harris Interactive to seek the views of kids grade 3-12 on science in schools. Harris polled 1,134 U.S. youth on behalf of ASQ December 16-28, 2009. The career-related questions were only asked of 7-12th graders.
From eSchool News: "During the National Science Teachers Association’s annual meeting in March, the American Chemical Society (ACS) introduced a free, online middle school chemistry curriculum that correlates with national standards. The curriculum is a response to President Obama’s call to strengthen U.S. science education, the ACS said. All of the experiments offer simple activities that teach the most important—and some of the most abstract—concepts of chemistry, such as how molecules attract each other. Veteran eighth-grade science teacher Chris Herald of Eisenhower Middle School in Manhattan, Kan., has tested the curriculum. “I’m anxious to use it,” Herald said in a press release. “I think the visuals are really nice. In a textbook, there’s no motion and no color, and you can’t see the sharing of the covalent bonds. The video shows what happens with the electrons. And each segment is short, so it is very useable. These days, every minute counts in the classroom. It’s easy to navigate the web pages, and it’s free.” http://www.middleschoolchemistry.com/
FEE BASED SERVICES! This is the company behind the award-winning DimensionM educational video game series for math; and the DimensionU Learning System - a universe of educational video games where students practice core K-12 subjects including math, literacy, science and history. Their mission is "to engage and motivate students so that they choose to devote more of their time to even the most difficult subjects. Standards-based, research driven and proven to delight, these games offer all of the action adventure fun associated with commercial video games, integrated with truly effective educational content."
In DimensionU, access multiplayer educational video games that help you hone your skills, connect with friends, climb the ranks and have a blast.
In DimensionM, math and fun collide, as K-12 students compete and collaborate with other players from around the country, and around the world.
DimensionL is a new training zone where students can work on their literacy skills, including vocabulary, grammar, spelling and much, much more, all while playing cool multiplayer video games
DimensionS-science related games
DimensionH-The DimensionU universe will expand in 2011, with the addition of DimensionH, a new destination where students can work on their history skills while playing cool multiplayer video games
FREE teacher reviewed lessons and activities across the content areas. Use Thinkfinity's portal page to search hundreds of math and science resources from consortium partners that include: NCTM's Illuminations, Science NetLinks, National Geographic's Xpeditions, ReadWriteThink and more!
has a collection of video tapes (VHS format), LaserDiscs (videodiscs) and DVDs that contain lecture material and demonstrations and also various presentations of material in physics and related topics. We also have a library of 8-mm film loops covering a variety of topics in physics, four sets of transparencies for use on overhead projectors, and an extensive library of 35-mm color transparencies (slides) on astronomy-related topics. In addition, we have several CD-ROMs and other media with a variety of instructional material. This web page contains a catalogue of these materials. You can preview these materials, or in case you have any questions regarding them, the hyperlinked titles either open files containing tables of contents or go to explanatory material on the web.
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